“What happened to your hand?”

“A small accident.” Ruzsky raised his hand, took off the rag, and threw it into the bin in the corner. A little blood was still oozing from his palm.

Ella’s mother lived on the top floor of the tenement block and it was a slow climb. Pavel wheezed heavily.

They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, surrounded by clothes which had been hung up to dry on lines crisscrossing the landing. A thin trickle of water ran down the stairs, forming a pool by their feet. There was an overpowering smell of urine.

The door closest to them opened and a young girl appeared. She had wild black hair, hollow cheeks, and staring eyes. She wore high boots and stood with her feet close together, watching them. There were six or seven people at least in the gloomy room behind her, lying in bundles on the floor.

Ruzsky started walking again and Pavel followed him. At the top, they saw that the trickle of water on the stairs had come from thick ice around the windows, some of which was beginning to melt.

Pavel ducked under another line of frozen washing and knocked on the door at the far end of the corridor.

They waited.

“Who is it?” a voice asked.

“Madam Kovyil? City police.”

There was another pause and then the door was opened by a tiny woman who barely reached Pavel’s waist. She smiled at him nervously and stepped back to allow them to enter. “This is Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” Pavel said, as if he himself was unimportant.

The woman forced herself to smile. “My husband once served under-”

“My father. Or perhaps my uncle.” Ruzsky grinned and clasped her wrist with his left hand. “Sandro.”

She placed a small, cold hand in his and tried to hold her smile in place.

She looked up at him with hollow eyes.

“Madam Kovyil, I’m afraid I have to tell you that…”

But he could see she already knew. From the palace, he assumed. From Shulgin, probably. She began to cry and Pavel was at once next to her, ushering her into a chair close to the fireplace and holding on to her arm until she had recovered her composure. Ruzsky wondered how long ago she had been told.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize, Madam Kovyil,” Ruzsky responded.

“Anna. Please call me Anna.”

She pushed herself forward in her chair. She seemed even frailer than when they had arrived. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I have no vodka, but tea perhaps?”

Ruzsky and Pavel both shook their heads. The room was small and neat, but the fireplace was too clean to have been used at any time in the recent past, and if she ever heated any kind of pot, they could both see it was a rare event.

The only light in the room emanated from one small window, covered in frost. Ruzsky stood and peered at the photographs on the mantelpiece. The first was of Anna and her husband on their wedding day, the second of him in the regimental uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guards, and the third of Ella at age fourteen or fifteen. As Ruzsky had imagined, she had a shy, sweet smile, like her mother.

“She was your only child?” Ruzsky asked.

Anna nodded once and then slowly and with dignity, placed her head in her hands. Pavel gripped her shoulder once more.

She composed herself and looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Ruzsky returned to his seat. Even in this light, he could see that its cover had been carefully stitched together. Like everything else, it spoke of a threadbare respectability.

“This is a terrible time, Madam… Anna, I know, but if you feel strong enough to answer questions, we’d greatly appreciate your assistance.”

Anna nodded. “Of course.”

“We don’t believe Ella’s murder was an isolated incident.”

Anna stared at him with unseeing eyes. Her face was narrower than Ella’s, and if, as the photograph suggested, she had once been beautiful, her features had been ravaged by age and cold and poverty.

“I told your colleagues,” she said quietly. “But if there is something else-”

“Our colleagues?”

Anna frowned. “Yes.”

“Which colleagues?”

“They came this morning, just a few minutes ago.”

“Did they give their names?”

“No, they just said they were from the police department.”

“Was it they who told you of your daughter… of Ella’s death?” Ruzsky asked.

She shook her head.

“You were informed by palace officials?”

“Yes.”

“Yesterday, or the day before?”

“The day before. On New Year’s Day, in the evening.”

“Colonel Shulgin came to see you?”

Anna did not respond, but he could see that this had not been the case. Ruzsky looked around. There was no telephone. Had they sent a messenger?

They had informed her by letter?

Ruzsky looked at Pavel and then back at Anna, unable to conceal his disgust at her treatment. “What did they look like, the men who came this morning?”

“The man in charge was tall. Like you, but bigger. He had short hair and poor skin and a large…” With long bony fingers she indicated a pronounced nose. “He didn’t tell me his name.”

Ruzsky glanced again at Pavel. “And what did he want?”

“There were four of them. They asked questions about Ella and… some others.”

“Which others?”

Anna sighed and stared at her hands. “Some I didn’t know.”

“Did they give names?”

“I can’t remember all of them.”

“It would help if you could recall one or two, Anna.”

She was overtaken by confusion. “Were they not policemen?”

“Not really, no.”

“Who were they?”

“Government officials.” Ruzsky glanced at Pavel again. “Okhrana. I don’t think they would be interested in finding your daughter’s killer.”

Anna kneaded her hands. Ruzsky hoped he’d not frightened her into silence. “They asked about Ella’s friend.”

“The American?”

“Yes.” Anna looked up, pleading with them.

Ruzsky showed her the photograph. “This man?” He was on the point of apologizing when he saw a hint of satisfaction in her eyes.

“He was charming, of course, but I didn’t like it. He was so much older than her. He…” She trailed off.

“He manipulated her?” Ruzsky suggested.

“I wanted her to marry a man like her father, like my…” Anna shook her head. “He was such a good man, so loyal, to the Tsar and to us.”

“Where did Ella meet her friend, Anna? Here in Petersburg?”

Anna shook her head. “At home.”

“In Yalta?” Ruzsky felt his pulse quicken.

“Such a long time ago now. I thought she had forgotten him.”

“She met the American on a holiday, or before you moved here?”

“Yes. That’s why I left. I wanted to get her away. But I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know that they remained in contact?”

“How could I? She never told me. I thought perhaps she would have met some nice man at the palace, which would have been so much more… appropriate. I always asked her about it and she said no, there was no one, that she was devoted to the Tsarevich and to her work…” Anna stopped again, frightened that she had revealed something she was not supposed to.

“We know your daughter worked with the Tsarevich,” Pavel said. “We have been to the palace. They spoke very highly of her.”

Anna seemed relieved. “She was a good girl. Such a good girl.”

“You met the American in Yalta?” Ruzsky asked.

“Only once.” Anna sat forward and pushed the scarf back from her head. She appeared stronger now, bolstered by hostility to her daughter’s lover. “That summer, he came to the house, just after Ella’s father had died. He was charming.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what it was. He was so much older than her. She was just a young girl.”

“Did you sense that your daughter-”

“I’m not a fool, Chief Investigator. I knew that they were lovers, but I thought that it was an infatuation that would run its course. She said that he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace and I thought she would soon forget him.”